LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – A $150 thousand reward is being offered to whoever can help lead to the arrest of suspects who robbed a mail carrier earlier this month.
Last week, FOX5 reported this type of crime is on the rise nationwide. That report was spurred by a mail theft, when someone broke into a shared mailbox and stealing the contents. In order to get a master key that would allow them to access mailboxes easily, a criminal might rob a mail carrier.
“Carriers, while they’re out delivering, they’re getting robbed at gunpoint and getting their postal keys stolen,” postal inspector Trevor Hudson told FOX5. “So that’s an alarming trend we’re taking very seriously and working to resolve and make arrests.”
Over the last several years, Hudson says the Las Vegas area has seen a major increase in this crime.
“The most alarming trend is carriers being robbed while on route,” Hudson explained. “Specifically, we’ve had three robberies in the Summerlin area dating back to just September of last year.”
The reward being offered is in relation to a robbery of a mail carrier in the Ridgebrook neighborhood of Summerlin South at 11:15 a.m. on March 4.
“It used to be a $50,000 reward, but now we have it at $150,000 because we realize this is a huge problem. We’re doing whatever we can to help solve it.”
People living nearby say they are on higher alert.
“Just a little uneasy,” Gilbert Huizar, who lives down the street from the mail robbery, said Monday. “Unexpected for sure.”
“Summerlin is known for being a good neighborhood,” Kennedy Nelson, who also lives a few doors down from the crime, added. “That’s why a lot of people move here. And it was very shocking, especially since it was just down the street, to know that something like that, so violent, happened.”
The motive behind this kind of crime, Hudson says, is often to take a master key from the mail carrier.
“These mail thieves, instead of prying open boxes and getting some mail here and there, they’re finding it more effective to just rob the carrier at gunpoint, get that key that the carrier has, and now they have access to the boxes that carrier has access to,” he explained.
The fact that their master key is out there is prompting multiple neighbors who spoke with FOX5 to beef up their home security.
“Motion detectors at night and cameras,” Huizar said, referencing his efforts to increase his surveillance capabilities. “With the amount of violence that happens, I don’t want to take any chances.”
The Postal Inspection Service began deploying high-tech security boxes around the country, making it more difficult for thieves to steal mail, even with a master key, but those boxes have not yet made their way to Las Vegas.
If you have any information related to this or any Postal Service-related crime, contact the Postal Inspection Service at 1-877-876-2455 or file a report online here.
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